Well, our first youth trip was a great success! We had a great time learning and playing and working with people from Ripple and Whitehall Mennonite churches. We had great conversations about community and God, and we saw different ways of doing church. I hope that you were able to follow along from home. Some […]

This past Sunday, we gathered in the center of our Sanctuary to bless youth and adults who are headed to Allentown and Chicago in the coming weeks. We laid hands on them, praying for their well-being and growth. Then, we all took bracelets as a reminder that God goes with us and that our church […]

Well, this blog post is a bit late. Maybe, like healing, it happened when the time was right and not based on any schedule. Anyway… Adult Sunday School is sort of a strange critter at GMC. Downstairs, around the fake fireplace, lounging on an odd collection of couches and chairs, an even odder collection of […]

The Saturday before Palm Sunday, I went up to SCI-Graterford, the state prison in Montgomery County, to visit a friend. He’s currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He has been in prison since he was sixteen years old, he is 47 right now. On this sunny Saturday morning, in the […]

During Black History Month, the Race & Privilege Committee invites you to reflect on how Spirit and Scripture have come alive in black history in our city. Each week, we will hear a short story of an important black leader in Philadelphia history, and how their life connects to the Scripture passages for that day. […]

Dear church, I am writing this from a coffee shop in Chicago. I am so grateful for each one of you, for your prayers sent to me and to the water protectors in Standing Rock, and I apologize not having better communication while I was there (it seems that my phone likes the cold even […]

Luke 18:1-8 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice […]

As some of you may know, we have started a two-month series call Paul Fall (#PaulFall), examining the writings and context of the apostle Paul. This means (*gasp*) that we are going off the Lectionary until the start of Advent. But the Lectionary continues to roll on, and so each week I will offer a […]

This past weekend was my first ever GMC retreat, and I was nervous. I was glad there were other people who were new to church retreat, so I had people to be nervous around! It gave me a lot of joy to be reminded this past weekend that our church knows that “church” and “retreat” […]

Earlier this week, Amy and I went to see a presentation at the Germantown Jewish Centre by the organization Roots, which promotes dialogue and understanding between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. Normally, I dislike these sort of organizations and don’t go to their events. When someone like Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger stands up […]